I am currently a Contributing Editor at Wired Magazine in the UK, having written for Wired UK since its launch in 2009, and speak regularly on the impact of developing technologies on consumer behaviors at Wired Consulting events and elsewhere.
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Twitter 'Hears You' On Violent Abuse - But Its Answer Remains Unclear

Over the last few days, Twitter might have considered changing its motto from the breezily Californian “what’s happening” to the more existential “Hell is other people”. The gigantic, semi-permeable Huis Clos of Twitter, representing around a half-billion registered users, has seen a number of cases around harassment and abuse break into the public view.

Image via CrunchBase

Twitter rage can occur over almost anything – David Vonderhaar of the Activision studio Treyarch found himself subject to a stream of abuse and threats of violence against himself and his family after announcing the rebalancing of a number of weapons in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. However, in the mainstream press, and in particular in the United Kingdom, the focus has fallen on threats of criminal and sexual violence against women.

In the face of growing criticism from victims of harassment, the media and law enforcement, Twitter has issued a response – but questions remain.

The cost of currency

The latest PR crisis had its roots in a campaign by feminist Caroline Criado-Perez to have a woman (other than the Queen) pictured among the notable people pictured on Britain’s paper currency. After the announcement that Jane Austen would be pictured on the new ten pound note, her celebrations were marred by a wave of harassment through Twitter, peaking at 50 threats of assault or rape every hour. When Member of Parliament Stella Creasey spoke in her defence, she found herself a target of similar threats – notably from a user who created the identity @killcreaseynow and, when that was suspended, came back as the more specific @eatcreaseynow.

Police are now investigating egregious threats delivered to both Creasey and Criado-Perez, and one arrest has already been made. However, in general the police are loath to take on the role of policing Twitter: Andy Trotter of the Association of Chief Police Officers Communications Advisory Group was quoted as saying:

We want social media companies to take steps to stop this happening. It’s on their platforms this is occurring. They must accept responsibilty for what’s happening on their platforms.

Twitter, meanwhile, has been criticized for its slow response to reports of harassment.

The problem for Twitter

Twitter is a naturally tempting channel for the breed of harassers who are consistently and inaccurately referred to as trolls. Its bar to entry is very low – all one needs is a disposable “burner” email address to register an account. The penalty for abuse is rarely worse than the suspension of an account – no real penalty at all if the account itself is a burner. And the nature of the system means that anyone who has not set up filters to prevent it can be directly addressed, often also receiving an email from Twitter helpfully reporting that someone has threatened their life.

However, these are also exactly the features that have propelled Twitter to its current level of popularity. Del Harvey, Twitter’s Senior Director of Trust and Safety drew attention to that popularity in a blog post released, some would say belatedly, in response to growing criticism and titled “We Hear You”:

We want Twitter to work whether you are trying to follow your favourite musician, talk to others about shared interests, or raise the visibility of a human rights issue.

We also have to think about scale and volume. We see an incredible amount of activity passing through our systems – there are more than 400 million Tweets sent every day worldwide. Those Tweets not only appear on our site and in our apps, but are also embedded into the fabric of traditional and digital media.

The vast majority of these use cases are positive. That said, we are not blind to the reality that there will always be people using Twitter in ways that are abusive and may harm others.

In terms of material changes to address this reality, however, Harvey’s response is less clear. She points out, correctly, that the mobile Twitter site and the iOS app have, as of three weeks ago, had a “report” button for reporting abusive tweets (among other things), and that there are plans to bring the same functionality to Android and desktop users.

However, this button currently takes the reporter through to the standard Twitter reporting system. This is clearly not set up for mobile users – reporters are asked to fill in a number of free text fields. As such, its utility on iOS and Android platforms, at least, is likely to be limited. If it takes more time to report a threat than to make it, then the asymmetry favors the harasser. On the other hand, as Harvey also notes, Twitter processes over 400 million posts every day, and the lower the bar is to report abuse the harder it will become to assign resources on a case-by-case basis.

Abuse reporting can also be misused, and indeed misused by the harassers themselves, especially when coordinated through other media. When Anita Sarkeesian’s first “Tropes versus Women in Video Games” video was released onto YouTube, it was almost immediately taken down after being repeatedly flagged using the YouTube reporting system (designed primarily to detect copyright infringement and adult content).

However, these problems are fixable – Sarkeesian’s video was restored, and a tag added to her account saying, in effect, that a human needed to check future abuse reporting as a matter of urgency, rather than the current system of the content being removed and human oversight being assigned by exception – that is, if the creator of the content registers an appeal. A large number of harasser accounts are newly-created and/or have almost no followers or followees, being designed purely to send threatening messages – it should be possible to filter the most likely candidates algorithmically, and go from there. However, as any middle manager knows, it is far easier to demand change than to implement it.

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